>> Don't you want news-server access? That's the most common>> deal-breaker for me.

> Nope. No web hosting, no email, no usenet, no technical support,> hell, they don't even need a tollfree customer service number.

> DNS is about the only thing I'd use (other then IP transit) but it's> not mandatory, I run my own DNS servers anyway (and most of the stuff> I'll be accessing will be through my VPN and in-house proxies anyway)

> Once the VPN is up I can access literally everything I need right> through there. Just PPTP at the moment, although if I have the time> to get IPSec working, I might switch over.

>> Budget ISPs often contract with dialup providers. The quality of>> service can depend on this, and the ISP's representative may not be in>> a position to know what's wrong.

> True enough.

>> At $9.95 I've been with localnet a couple of years, I guess. At times>> I've looked for alternatives, but in the long run things have worked>> out.

They charge $12 setup, so the first month would be $21.95, if that's
what you mean.

There were no problems for my first several months. Sometimes
episodes of repeated annoyances have made me think of switching, but
they got fixed. That's what I mean by "the long run."

As someone pointed out, freedomlist.com has lots of cheap ISPs, and
some are probably very good. They say localnet is too expensive. I
tried access4less based on recommendations there. As it turned out,
their service had recently gone bad. It was terrible in many ways:
the signup, download speeds, and customer service. A few days after I
signed up, they dropped dialup. I was glad I hadn't dropped localnet.